Secondary school mobile/smart device ban - how are you handling this with DC?

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My DS11 is starting secondary school in September. His new school has introduced a smart device ban to take effect from this year.

DS does not have a smart phone. He is very upset today as his football team trained together for the last time and they were all swapping numbers. Understandably, he felt left out. Equally, there will be children leaving his primary that are not attending the same secondary school and he wants to keep in touch.

I have been speaking to some of the school Mum’s whose children already have a smart phone and they say their children will still take a smart phone to secondary but ensure it’s switched off and buried in bag. The school have prohibited them and they are not allowed on the premises.

I’ve just had a conversation with DS saying that him being upset and getting worked up at not having a smart phone is the exact reason why his Dad and I don’t want him to have one … although, I completely see his point.

I intend to go back to work full-time in September and whilst I work from home in the main, I will spend one or two days each week in the office and I would like to have some way of us being in contact between school finishing and getting home from work. I have suggested a dumb phone might be the way but he says what’s the point, I can’t talk to my friends on WhatsApp?

His Dad is over the moon with the ban; his words “at last! Common sense f’king prevails!’ but he only has DS one night a week and every other weekend and it’s me doing the bulk of the parenting.

I am so torn. Of course I see the downsides of smart phones and as an older parent (I’m 55) I didn’t get my first phone until I was 28 so it’s not as though I grew up with them but this is a different generation and I’m struggling with it.

For those of you in a similar situation to me, how are you handling these conversations with your DC? Are you standing firm? Do you agree with flouting the rules and letting DC hide phones in their school bag? I really do not know how to deal with this.

Sorry for typos, I can’t seem to go back and edit!

As a teacher, more than 50% of the issues that I deal with during the school day are smart phone related. If the phones aren't in school, then it becomes a parental issue. Good.

Age of use for WA is 13. Parents are circumnavigating this. Again, should be a parental issue.

But, but, but, the phone will stay in the bottom of their bag, you know, that one they're taking to the toilet and opening up in the cubicle.

Maybe if children had their phones all locked away in special pouches. Great idea. Obviously, as a teacher, I haven't got time to do this because, well, I'm teaching. Hope you all want to pay some extra tax to fund the additional staff.

Let him have the phone and put time/app blockers on. It’s so tough at that age being left out. Messaging from a cheap phone is not the same as WhatsApp. He’ll want to be in group chats with his friends and could miss out of plans they make, inside jokes etc

I think what most parents want is phones not allowed to be used during the actual school day but it being not against the rules to actually have one switched off and in a bag/locker/security place or whatever.
It's a personal piece of equipment that's not needed for the actual school day but still needs to be available to them. Like their house key or wallet.
In bag. Switched off. Not being used.
That should be the rule.

My school is already phone free. Tbf we take their phones in the morning and lock them away until the end of the day. We have wands to check students that come in late or claim to not have their phone (if we are suspicious).
Ironically nearly all their homework is online, so they would likely need a smartphone or tablet to complete it.
We don’t use the pouches. Each form has a box, each child a slot in the box. Form teachers fill out the sheet in the morning and Head of years and SLT come and collect the boxes and lock them away. They bring them back to
us at form at the end of the day.

It’s not the school that gave changed the rules, it’s come from the government. All schools will be doing this. Mine are 14 and 12, both gave basic Nokia phones. I have a ring doorbell so I can see them get in from school on my in office days. Also have a house phone for emergencies.

We have introduced the pouches. It is not taking any extra staff. The students lock them after coming through the gate and unlock them as they leave.

Search bags, and yes they are allowed to do this.

This is a national initiative all schools have to ban phones from September. DS school is taking g the route of locked boxes where they all have to hand phones in at the start of the day. They have been told that nag searches will be in effect. We don't live to far from school so DS has decided he will just leave his at home, I will have to fill in a form saying that's what he will do and he'll get a no phone card of some sort.

@MigGirl but if it's switched off and not bothering anyone why would the school need to search a bag?

you are allowing your kid to hand in a fake phone so he can kept is iPhone in his bag? Wow. Just wow.
really teaching respect of rules to young people here. And honesty. And integrity.
just wow.

So well said. Smart phones are causing so much damage to kids. It’s proven. It’s studied. They are now linking them to the increase of single people as they are taking away the capacity to socialise. Socialising though smart phone is not socialising
but parents seem adamant their kids use them and circumvent all rules.
honestly. Who are this people???!

It’s a smart phone ban. Not a phone ban. He can still have a phone to text and call.. and keep in touch with friends and yourselves.

I agree with DH. It’s the way it should be and it should be implemented in all schools so we can start properly tackling: violence against women and girls, cyber bullying, red-pill incels, revenge porn and unrealistic expectations triggered by online alternate realities.

We managed without phones and still grew up without being raped, assaulted or terrorised. Todays kids are going to have to tough it up and learn some self reliance.

Phone gets checked regularly by me.
No pings as we set that to not notify.
The school go in about no phones blah blah blah and then have science and maths on Sparx and now even fucking reading in Sparx

Plus other homework set online.

They can get to fuck and my kid will take her phone and keep it in her bag, as I will want her to be able to tell me after school if she will hang out with a friend or of the buses aren't running

Exactly this. In her first week in year 7, my daughter got on the wrong coach one afternoon. An easy mistake, as about 15 buses and coaches left our rural school every day, heading off for up to an hour in every direction. Meanwhile, I was sitting in a car park 20 minutes from home, waiting to pick her and her older brother up from the bus stop. Without the phone in her bag, she’d have had no way to let me or her brother (who was on the right bus and very worried when he realised his sister wasn’t!) know what had happened. As it was, she was able to contact us both. A very kind older pupil spoke to me and explained where the coach was heading (a village I’d never heard of!). A tricky situation quickly resolved. (And bless the older girl, she even waited with my daughter until I’d collected my son and found my way to the mystery location!)

Nice

No child needs a smart phone.

Get him a decent phone, he can turn it off and put it in the bottom of his bag during school time. Don’t let him be the odd one out, school is hard enough. Use parental controls on the phone and your home wifi.

Haven't rtft, but I use WhatsApp on my laptop. Would that be an option? We plan to have a family desktop in a communal area when my DC are older (still a way off) and I thought this might be a way around messaging services but I've not looked into it yet.

Guess it might be a faff, get a dumb phone with a SIM, put the SIM into a smart phone, link the WhatsApp profile with the SIM on the laptop (need to scan a qr code), then put the SIM back in the dumb phone and continue. WhatsApp can be used in the lounge/dining room or whatever to chat with friends, parents have access to it.

Haven't worked out all the logistics of making this work for multiple children, but was an idea!

Surely he can still own a smart phone and just use it at home.

Come off it. You grew up in a different time.

What a terrible example to set for your child! Allowing him to avoid following school rules by being sly is a recipe for disaster. Regardless of your parental controls the message to him is completely backwards.

Our local schools (primary and secondary) have banned all phones and have reverted back to homework books and paper timetables. Our children won't be getting any kind of phone at all for the foreseeable future. Our eldest is 11 & thankfully the majority of his friends don't have phones either.

Our school actively tells Y7 parents not to let their children have WhatsApp on their phones.

Most of the year team spend their time dealing with the fallout from WhatsApp group chats or the inappropriate content sent.

One student felt it ok to send a snuff video to a group of his friends - a couple were traumatised.

A friend of mine saw no problem with it despite my warnings, then got upset when her 10yo dd got sent dick pics of adult men from her peers who thought it was funny.

It amazes me that parents can be so naive and let their children use it.

Does he have a tablet you can download WhatsApp onto? He could then message his friends when not at school and still have a basic phone for school

Our school has phones handed in at reception/form teacher start of the day, collected again at the end.
We are rural, so smartphones are absolutely needed (regular phones are completely pointless- no reception in most places).